


Raith's Story

by DarkCoffeeWitch



Category: Anthem (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 16:58:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20678795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkCoffeeWitch/pseuds/DarkCoffeeWitch
Summary: Raith tells Signy about his past.





	Raith's Story

Signy wiped her forehead with the back of her hand as she looked up from where she crouched in front of Raith's javelin, the Ranger he called Fishbone.

"I don't know why you don't want to take this contact. It's an escort. For a trader. We're gone a few weeks and back with pockets full of coin." She slapped the javelin's knee, "Okay, try it now."

Obligingly, Raith flexed Fishbone's leg a few times.

"Better?" She stood back, giving the actuator a critical look.

Raith gave her a thumbs up and waited for her to unclamp the javelin's right leg from her engineering rig.

"I mean, I know you and Gael think that javelin parts just fall from the sky-"

"Sometimes they do," signed Raith.

"Not usable ones," Signy threw him a you're-not-being-helpful look, "And no one will arm wrestle me for parts anymore." She flexed her left arm, a gleaming prosthetic based on javelin and Shaper technology. She had recently discovered she could paint it and add vinyls like a javelin and currently sported a pink and black design featuring a tessilar skull that matched her Storm.

"So please explain why we can't take this very simple, very well paying contract?" Signy rested her hands on her hips, arms akimbo, a streak of grease across the bridge of her nose like war paint, and stared up at Raith.

Raith's face plate lowered and locked into place. He signed, "Get your javelin. I'll show you why."

They flew out of Fort Tarsis on a northeast heading under overcast skies that sputtered a light rain, keeping their javelins cool and allowing them to make good time.

"If I had known we were flying all the way to the Emerald Abyss, I would've brought snacks," said Signy as her stomach growled loudly enough to make her wonder if Raith had heard it.

Fishbone translated over the comms as Raith signed, "What do you think all these pouches on my javelin are for?"

She laughed, "Ammunition, I thought."

"It's like you don't even know me," he signed and swept down to the southern ground entrance, a natural tunnel through the rock that would fit a strider. But it would be close. Very close.

Signy landed next to him. They walked up the incline of the tunnel into the sunlight. The ever changeable weather had cleared, and verdant land and deep blue lock unrolled before the two lancers in a long path to the distant ruins of Sanctuary.

Raith signed, "Did you know my sister is a lancer, too?

"I didn't even know you had a sister." Signy followed him as he made his way to the dilapidated remains of a strider.

"Yes, one sister. Older. Mara," Fishbone translated as Raith circled the wreck to get to the cargo bay. Turning to Signy, he motioned for her to follow him inside. The whole strider was canted, like a broken keeled shipwreck, but not so much that they couldn't stand comfortably. Raith went to the back of the cargo bay to retrieve an empty shipping crate, lidless and dented, and brought it to the loading ramp, setting it down with the bottom up before he powered down his javelin and swung out of it. As Signy climbed out of her Storm, Raith rustled through the utility pouches on Fishbone. When she turned towards him, he a tossed a small package to her.

She caught it, read the label and grinned, "Cookies?"

He nodded, smiled, and went to sit on the overturned crate, leaving enough room for Signy to sit next to him. For a moment, he stared at the hazy outline of the far off ruins, hands still, before Signy asked, "So... your sister, was she mute as well?"

She immediately regretted asking the question the question, feeling stupid. What were the chances of two mute children in a single family? Signy felt a blush begin to climb her face like a creeping vine, but she had been studying Raith, all inky black hair, dusky skin, pale green eyes, and blurted out the question from amidst a mouthful of cookie before she thought better of it.

To her vast relief he grinned and signed, "No. She talked all the time. Lied constantly. But not to me. Only to people she didn't like."

He glanced back at his javelin, hands still momentarily, before continuing, "I got picked on as a kid, especially by one boy named Lukas. Mara hated him even more than I did. I was nine, she was ten. But she was a good liar even then. Lukas had knocked me down when she jumped in front of him and shouted that he would kill me if he hit me. She said I was mute because I had choked on a fishbone when I was a baby and it had gotten tangled in my vocal chords."

He paused to rub his forehead, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter, "She told him that the fishbone was still stuck in my throat, and, if I opened my mouth wide enough and he looked inside, he would see it. So Lukas seems doubtful but curious, tells me to get up. He gets close, stares into my mouth, and Mara sucker punches him. Knocks him out cold."

Signy burst into laughter.

Raith signed, "After that, he left me alone."

Signy chuckled, cleared her throat of cookie, and said, "Mara sounds awesome. Where is she now? Antium?"

"Stralheim."

"What?" She watched an unfamiliar expression suffuse Raith's face and realized it was guilt. And sorrow.

He began to sign, his hands trembling enough for Signy to notice, "Five years ago we took a rescue contract. Arcanists studying the ruins at Sanctuary had come under attack from a Dominion party. My javelin was damaged, and I got hurt. I don't really remember much after that. The arcanists told me Mara locked me in the rescue strider's cargo hold with them. Then she went back out to fight."

"Oh no! Oh no, I'm so sorry," Signy touched his arm.

Raith stopped signing, rubbed at his eyes, then continued, "I couldn't find her. Or her javelin. A year went by, and I hoped she was dead, because Dominion-":here he made a gesture that wasn't sign, just an expression of disgust and anguish because every freelancer knew the things that the Dominion does to its captives- "On the anniversary of the day she disappeared, I got a message, just a time, a place, and the letter M. The place was Sanctuary. When I got here, I saw Mara. I ran up and hugged her, but she was like a statue, cold. Hard. She told me she loved me but she had to go back before the Sculptor missed her."

"The Sculptor," repeated Signy. "Sounds like a big S, like big M Monitor. Not good."

Raith nodded, signed, "She wouldn't come back with me. She told me not to try to force her because she didn't know how long she could hold herself back and it wouldn't be safe for Fort Tarsis."

Raith met Signy's eyes, "Now we meet once a year... until-until she can't."

Signy put it together, "And the anniversary is coming up."

Raith nodded again. His arms were tense and crossed, his shoulders hunched. Signy gave his shoulder a gentle bump with her own and said, "Forget the contract. Plenty of stuff to do around here, right?"

He gave a half smile and signed, "Thanks."

Three days later:

Raith watched the horizon from above the northern precipice of Sanctuary's ruins. The sky snarled into dark masses of storm-tangled clouds. As he hovered, the wind butted Fishbone hard, like a wolven, first from one direction then gusting from another, forcing him to land.

He was worried. Mara had always been here before him, her javelin, a white interceptor, catching his eye like a beacon amidst the crumbling architecture. He thought about contacting Gael and asking him to do a search for her, but it felt sacrilegious. This day was always just for Mara and himself.

Raith was considering what to do when Fishbone's HUD flashed an enemy contact warning. He had no time to react when a dark javelin appeared in front of him out of nowhere, the remnants of a cloaking field falling away, the ephemeral motes of it gathering to hover over the strange javelin's shoulder in a shifting black sphere, not unlike a fury's shield in miniature.

Raith drew his mace, electricity crackling in bright arcs from it, but the other javelin's face plate rose, revealing his sister, though her eyes were a luminous unnatural blue instead of green, and, when she spoke his name, he saw the sharp length of her teeth.

"Raith," she cried, "I came to warn you. You have to stop it. The storm. It's almost here."

He signed, "What did they do to you?"

Her voice changed, "He remade me. And my javelin. I'm better now-I'm-" she shook her head, the panic returning, "I'm not, I'm not Mara anymore. We can't meet again... Just-just stop the cataclysm."

Her faceplate snapped down, and her javelin turned away, boosters flaring to life. Desperately Raith grabbed her arm, noticing that her Interceptor now bore modified gauntlets with large unretractable claws. Lethal but unable to grip a gun was his last coherent thought before she whirled to rake the claws of the opposite gauntlet across Fishbone's helmet, the burst of electricity shorting out his shield and sending Fishbone stumbling backward. He lifted his mace, preparing to jumpstart his shields by siphoning hers with an attack, but he saw her disappear as the cloak finished closing around her.

He spun wildly, searching for her, but he saw no one and his HUD showed nothing. As he stood there, the storm broke overhead, releasing as sheet of rain that remained unbroken around him, and Raith knew he was alone.


End file.
